For your informationChristian Reformed World Missions has more than 200 missionaries in more than 40 countries, and, via partnerships with more than 100 organizations and 50 countries.Refor...

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For your information

Christian Reformed World Missions has more than 200 missionaries in more than 40 countries, and, via partnerships with more than 100 organizations and 50 countries.

Reformed Church in America has 41 missionaries in 16 countries and 47 missionary working for partner organizations in 26 countries, with both types of missionaries serving in some of the same countries, according to an RCA spokeswoman. The RCA also has six missionaries working in the U.S.

Ali Neevel is facing down her last semester as a college student and about to test her faith in the future with a brief mission trip to Africa.

The Holland native, now a senior at Iowa's Central College, majoring in elementary education, signed up for a trip being organized by a Nashville-based ministry, The Raining Season.

Mission work is a way to express her love for serving others, said Neevel, a member of Holland's Trinity Reformed congregation. Inspired by one of her favorite professors at Central, Neevel will work at a Freetown, Sierra Leone, orphanage starting in mid-May (exact dates are being finalized) for a few weeks. She's hoping to make connections that will lead to a longer stint across the ocean, sharing God's message of love, she said.

For now, Neevel, 22, is busy raising the $3,500 to cover the cost of her brief trip, including airfare. Financing the trip up front provides cost-free volunteers to support the mission. Fundraising starts with an appeal to family, friends and strangers.

"We have to raise all our funds. We have to apply for a visa, and we have to get shots. We have to collect diapers, clothes for kids and other things, like those big trash bags," said Neevel, who is selling T-shirts emblazoned with the word "love" featuring an Africa-shaped "o" for $15 each and will start a blog on her mission experience.

Mission hopefuls also discard quite a bit. Holland resident Kortni Christian, 34, has given up her apartment, a chunk of her belongings and her full-time communications coordinator job at Calvary Baptist Church in Holland. She cleaned out her desk, is training her replacement and starting a temp job for Barnabas Ministries. Having prayed for two years about committing to a long-term mission, the Cornerstone grad has worked in communications for a decade, including a stint as a journalist at The Sentinel. She went on to work for an international relief organization, then for Calvary Baptist. Her initial dream of working in Germany or Ireland for a year has been exchanged for the goal of raising $30,000 to fund a year of using her writing and design skills to help open a school in Kosovo as part of Global Neighbors team.

"I think it comes down to where you're most needed," she said. "Ultimately, you're God's servant ... you can't go set your own agenda ... God asks for your life first, and it changes when you give your life to God."

Tabitha Heth de Zurita, 26, made an even bigger choice. She went from teaching Spanish at a New Orleans public school to embracing life in Guatemala as a fifth-grade teacher in August of 2010, a life which now includes her husband, whom she met there. The member of Overisel Reformed Church said she loves her job and new life but is occasionally surprised by a wave of nostalgia for West Michigan.

Page 2 of 2 - "I thought I'd never struggle with homesickness ... I'm just not a very homey person. But there are times when, no matter how much time I've spent here, I still get frustrated with the culture. One day I love it, and another day I'm crying for home. If I could take CAG home, I may have considered it by now," Heth de Zurita wrote in an email. But for the most part, she remains passionate and committed to the U.S.-style Christian Academy of Guatemala's students, mostly children of missionaries, which prompts her to quip she's a "missionary to the missionaries."

Concern for children and their education is one of the leading reasons missionaries leave the field, according to several sources. Keeping Heth de Zurita on the job means ongoing fundraising.

"I have a combination of supporters. Some are prayer warriors. Some send in monthly support, special gifts, or some churches send in offerings. God showed he was behind this from the beginning, when I originally left having raised all the monthly support I needed within three months. That is almost unheard of here on the mission field. As money fluctuates, God always raises up more people. My supporters are a huge part of the ministry. I am not here on my own — I know they are part of the mission in the way they can be."

Once finances are secure, the young missionaries focus on their respective trips' purpose: Sharing God's love.

"I love the feeling of helping other people and seeing their faces light up," Neevel said. "I love being that light for them."